Category: Music

Confession time. I tend to get defensive when people ask me if I’m learning Korean because of K-pop. That’s because 1) K-pop was never a motivation for me to learn the language; it was a side-effect, and the better I got at Korean, the less I started to like idol music anyway. And 2) the stereotype of a typical K-pop fan these days is less than flattering.

That said, yes, I too had a rich, happy K-pop phase. I used to be a huge DB5K fan and then Big Bang, and had my phases with SHINee, Infinite, B.A.P., and B2ST (which UM WHAT apparently a lot has happened with them since I last checked).

Anyway I found my interest in K-pop rekindled when a friend of mine told me about YGE’s official rhythm game BeatEVO YG. The app has been absolute shit since its recent Android update so I can’t in good conscience recommend it, but I got addicted anyway and am now super nostalgic for 2006-2010-era Big Bang. All of a sudden, I’m back to listening to 하루 하루, 거짓말, 마자막 인사, 나만 바라봐 on repeat.

The lyrics to this song are so horrible and yet….

I think now, listening to those songs, a lot of the nostalgia I have has to do with how much those songs influenced my learning Korean. I really don’t think I give K-pop enough credit for the role it played in my early Korean learning days, but it was a critical source from which I absorbed tons of new grammar and vocabulary.

A few days ago, I was digging through some old notes from that “exponential” phase of my Korean learning days and found a three-ring binder full of K-pop lyrics and language notes.

I used to print out the lyrics to a song I liked and then painstakingly look up every single noun, verb, particle, connector, and sentence ending I didn’t know using either Talk To Me In Korean, Clare You & Eunsu Cho’s Online Intermediate College Korean, and/or Korean Wiki Project. I’d break up the lyrics into stanzas and under each stanza, type out all of my language notes, and then write up a rough translation of the lyrics in English. And then I’d compare it existing translations out there.

And then, I’d memorize.

My language notes from Big Bang’s ‘Haru Haru.’

It wasn’t a perfect or even efficient method, and there were definitely pitfalls I had to watch out for. I risked learning grammar incorrectly, or learning weird slang words/expressions and skewing my developing vocabulary to words related to love and heartbreak. English translations that existed online were mostly terrible, so using those to help me grasp word usage and nuance was probably a bad idea. The potential to learn something wrong and then struggle to unlearn it later on was very, very high.

And yet.

This way of learning Korean through K-pop somehow made Korean feel like a more tangible and comprehensible language to me than reading about it in a textbook. Over the years, through reading a wide range of material and, yes, suffering through textbooks, I’ve managed to correct some of those things I learned incorrectly while gaining a deeper understanding of others I had oversimplified. But, for sure, if I hadn’t started out teaching myself like this, I don’t think I’d be at the level I am now.

I might be reluctant about admitting it these days, but I look back on my K-pop fandom days with a lot of fondness, both for how much I enjoyed the music itself and for how much it built my foundation for Korean. Those were good times.

Okay, so, a funny, unexpected side effect of playing so much BeatEVO YG — I’m really into Sechskies now???? Yep. The real reason I don’t listen to K-pop any more is actually just because my taste in idol music is stuck in the 90s-00s. 😂

I have been removed from the idol scene for a few years now, but there was a time in college and graduate school when SHINee’s music meant a lot to me. I bonded with two of my closest friends over their music; no matter how far-removed we were as fans then, it truly feels like we’ve lost something precious today.

As someone with clinical depression, just a scant few months older than Jonghyun, and as someone who has felt a similar kind of hopelessness and despair, I am truly sick with grief at how society keeps failing individuals with mental illnesses.

Take this moment to reach out to your loved ones and check in on them. The ones who smile the fiercest on the outside are often the ones who are crumbling on the inside.

I leave you with a song that Jonghyun covered on Immortal Song 2 back in 2011. To this day, it is one of my favorite performances by him.

Originally a Latvian song and popularized by Russian singer Alla Pugacheva, the Korean version 백만송의 장미 was first sung by Shim Soo-bong in 1997. Korean lyrics and English translation by me below.

I’ve had Clazziquai’s new album Travellers on repeat since it came to Spotify (bless). I love the new single so much. The lyrics and instrumentals kind of remind me of Ra-on and Yeong’s early friendships/shenanigans – though that might just be because I’ve been thinking of Moonlight Drawn By Clouds too much these days! Heh. (Seriously though. If I made a Moonlight mixtape, this song would be on it.)

#CuriousI want to go out to eat with youI want to walk around with youFor some reason, these daysI want to do these things with youI’m curious aboutevery little thing about youDays without youare so dullIf I’m with youThis day can be a special dayI keep sayin’This place can be a special placeDon’t you know thatI can be a special someoneI gotta tell you, do you mind?Do you mind?Everybody knowsSay it againSay it againFor some reason, these daysYou look a bit differentI’m curious aboutevery little thing about youDays without youare so dullIf I’m with youThis day can be a special dayI keep sayin’This place can be a special placeDon’t you know thatI can be a special someoneI gotta tell you, do you mind?Do you mind?Everybody knowsGive me loveGive me loveI can give my loveWhen I’m with you, for some reasonI want be be with you foreverThis day can be a special dayI keep sayin’This place can be a special placeDon’t you know thatI can be a special someoneI gotta tell you, do you mind?Do you mind?Everybody knowsEverybody knows

Given that I know zilch about what’s happening in Korean entertainment these days, it came as a mild surprise to learn that Park Yoochun (of K-drama & K-pop fame) is off to serve his mandatory two-year military service. Very soon in fact. Like, today. Or yesterday.

I chanced upon this short interview while scanning Korean celeb magazines for quality reading content and – well, normally I’m rather indifferent to Yoochun but sentimentality got the better of me. I’d just resumed reading 셩균관 유생들의 나날 for the umpteenth time, which got me thinking about Sungkyunkwan Scandal, (still one of my favorite dramas to date, by the way), which made me think about JYJ and DBSK and OT5 4ever, etc. etc.

I found this interview pretty funny actually because the interviewer/writer can’t start a single question without talking about how PYC is going to be gone for TWO YEARS – it’s like s/he is so desperate for Yoochun to talk about how crushed he’s going to be to give up the spotlight, but Chunnie’s having none of that. Full translated interview under the cut! And the usual:

(Disclaimer: All copyright belongs to the original source. I am not profiting by this translation and cannot guarantee its accuracy. In fact, I’ve taken a few liberties with my translation this time by prioritizing meaning and written fluency over more literally representing the original text.)

Okay so this happened: On May 28, Epik High commenced their 2015 North American Tour at the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco.

AND I WAS THERE.

The stage at the Warfield Theater

This was a big deal for me because it was my first ever concert. I’m a homebody and the idea of standing in line, enduring screaming fans and general madness just to hear/see artists live never seemed appealing to me – especially since I can just listen to a CD or watch a YouTube video in the comfort of own home. But I’m thrilled to give up my… uh… concert virginity to Epik High. Honestly there’s no other group I’d want that honor to go to. Hee.

I still can’t believe my two eyes saw them in the flesh.

San Francisco was the first stop on their tour so their energy was really fresh. Tablo’s always been my musical bias (I still think he’s one of the best wordsmiths in this industry) but Mithra was FANTASTIC at rapping live. The venue was small enough that the whole concert itself felt intimate. So intimate, in fact, that their true dorkiness shone through. During the intermission, the trio listed off their favorite things about North America and – I kid you not – Tablo said geocities and hotmail. Woooowww. (Tablo couldn’t hide his nerdiness – Mithra and Tukutz named some popular movies and Tablo’s like, “Uh… F. Scott Fitzgerald…” I screamed extra loud for that.)

A fan requested poor Mithra to do aegyo…. let’s just say that is a memory I want to bleach out of my brain forever.

The concert ranged from songs from their relatively new stuff (“Born Hater,” “Don’t Hate Me,” “Happen Ending,” “Eyes, Nose, Lips”) to old fan favorites (“Umbrella,” “Love, Love, Love,” “Fan”). Such nostalgia. A tiny part of me wishes I had splurged on VIP tickets but we had pretty great seats overall.

I swear I have photos from the concert and will add them to this post at a later time (they’re on my phone – haven’t had time to transfer them to my computer). Better late than never! Photos below.

Let me tell you a story about myself. When I was growing up, I moved a lot. By the time I graduated high school, I had lived in five different states and changed schools just as many times. When I got older, the moves got much harder. At one point, I remember making the mental decision to just not make friends – what was the point if I was just going to move away after a couple years?

I moved to North Carolina in the middle of seventh grade and, day after day, I remember vividly eating lunch alone at one end of a lunch table in the corner of the cafeteria. There was a group of girls who sat a little bit further down from me that I recognized from some of my classes. I would glance at occasionally because they seemed friendly but I didn’t approach them or say anything for weeks. And then one day, a girl from that group approached me and said, “Do you want to sit with us?” And I did. I’m still friends with her to this day and even though we don’t talk very often, that bit of kindness has stayed in my heart for the past twelve years and will continue to do so for many, many more. The friends I made that day I will always cherish.

The lyrics of this song transported me back to those days of desperate loneliness right after I had moved to a new place. Never again do I want to experience the feeling of seeing groups of friends all around me but not knowing how to talk to them, literally feeling the words get stuck in my throat as I approached them. I think I’ve cried several times listening to this song but afterwards I always feel thankful for the people who have reached out to me over the years and received me with warmth. I hope I’ve helped someone in the same way.

Hello, I know you but
You don’t know me, do you
All this time, we’ve never even spoken
Everyday, I just watch all of you,
Mingling with each other, in the distance

‘Should I go over there or not?’
‘Should I trying speaking to them or not?’
‘Would it be better if I greeted them like this?’
‘Would they welcome me if I were like this?’
Once again
As I think about it, the chance slips by

Do you know how lonely it is
To be all by yourself?
Do you know how much it hurts
To see you avoid me?

Don’t leave me so far behind
Please just leave me here like this
Because just being in the same place as you,
Just being here with all of you
Puts me at ease

Don’t leave me by myself
Please let me be here with you
Because just being in the same place as you,
Just being here with all of you
Puts me at ease

Always the exact same attitude towards me
A shadow that falls upon me alone
Like a boat that’s strayed off its course
And is left by itself in the sea
Less than me
You always leave me by myself so
I don’t expect that you’ll call ever my name
Like a harmonica covered in dust
My voice dies away, only the sound of my breathing can be heard

In a dark place, without anyone knowing
my heart aches
Because I’m too proud
I can’t confess that I’m lonely
Every morning the unwelcome, bitter atmosphere
And the fog in my heart that blocks out the sun
Can you understand it?
Not at all

Hello, I know you but
You don’t know me, do you
(Nanananana nananana)

Hello, I know you but
You don’t know me, do you

Don’t leave me so far behind
Please just leave me here like this
Because just being in the same place as you,
Just being here with all of you
Puts me at ease

Don’t leave me by myself
Please let me be here with you
Because just being in the same place as you,
Just being here with all of you
Puts me at ease

I’ve been listening to a lot of “experimental” electronic, indie rock, and singer/songwriter type music these days. When I listen to music in a language I can understand (English, Korean, and some Japanese), lyrics are often the most noticeable element of song for me and vocals tend to stand out against the backdrop of instrumentals. But in other languages, vocals become mere morphemes without meaning, indistinguishable from the other layers of sound in a song. A friend and I were discussing how sometimes we prefer to listen to songs in languages we don’t understand – for me, at least, it’s because it lets me interpret and feel the song in my own way without being hindered by semantics.

Recently, this friend introduced me to a singer who, as she described it, has “the voice of a siren.”

Cécile Corbel is a Breton singer and harpist who, in addition to having the most enchanting voice I’ve ever heard, also composed the score for the Studio Ghibli film 借りぐらしのアリエッティ (The Borrower Arrietty). That’s her singing a song from the film in the video above and, yes, she is singing in Japanese! Corbel’s native language is Breton – a Celtic language that originated in the British Isles and is spoken predominantly in Bretagne, France – but she also sings in French, English, Italian, German, and Irish. And true to her roots, many of her songs have a gorgeous Celtic feel to them.

Here’s one of my favorites by her – “La Fille Damnée” in French.

It’s been ages and ages since I heard anything in French and, as per my usual weakness with French, I understood very little about what this song was about until I looked at the lyrics in French (so I guess my four years of French in high school wasn’t all for naught? Heh.) But that wasn’t necessarily the point because I wasn’t really trying to understand this song. Corbel has a voice that I just want to listen to and feel without thinking.

But then I noticed something interesting. I remember when SNSD’s “I Got a Boy” came out and English-speakers “misheard” the chorus (“I got a boy 멋진, I got a boy 착한”) as “I got a boy munchin’, I got a boy chicken.” It’s as though your brain takes the sounds of a language you don’t know (e.g. Korean) and forcefully tries to apply meaning to it using a language that you do know (e.g. English). Now, I’ve listened to Korean music for years so I never “misheard” those lyrics in English. Even when I come across Korean speech or lyrics that I don’t understand, my brain still recognizes it as Korean.

Now the weird thing with me is when I listened to one of Corbel’s songs in Spanishamong others, I kept hearing what sounded weirdly like Korean or Japanese or even Hindi words. Never once did my brain try to “Englishify” what I was listening to, despite the fact that 99% of the time I open my mouth to speak, I use English. I wonder if this is a result of the fact that the vast majority of songs that I listen to are not in English, even though I use English in my daily communication. But something similar happens when I watch movies in foreign languages to which I have little to no exposure – let’s say German or Thai. I’ve found this to be really disorienting because my brain keeps trying to hear Korean or Japanese in the dialogue, not English, even though the vast majority of movies I watch are in English. It’s almost as if my brain understands I’m hearing something in a foreign language, makes a switch from English, and tries to interpret it in my next-most-proficient foreign language. Does this happen to anyone else? And I’m not sure but is there a technical linguistics/cognitive science terminology for this phenomenon?

It’s crazy. I’ve been thinking more and more about neurobiology these days and how fascinating it must be to study the brain in the context of language acquisition. I wonder if there’s a way to visualize a phenomenon like the one I described happening using fMRI – do different parts of the brain light up? Is the neural connectivity changing? Does synaptic plasticity affect whether or not you experience something like this? Gah, so many delicious questions. I should dig into the literature sometime.

Thanks to Jeannie, I’ve known about 투개월 since their Superstar K3 days. Lead vocalist of the duo, Kim Yerim, has a sultry type of voice that’s sort of a mix between Mad Soul Child’s Jinsil and Casker’s LeeYoong-jin. I’m not sure what happened to the other half of the duo Do Dae-yoon (I heard that he left to concentrate on his studies?); in any case, it looks like 투개월 might be morphing into a solo act. Recently Kim Yerim – or Lim Kim, as she’s being marketed now – released her first solo mini-album ‘A Voice’ which is every bit as delightful as I thought it would be.

I don’t think the title track does justice to her voice but I do relate to the lyrics – the song’s basically about a person pretending she’s all right when she really isn’t. And man, is the music video… weird. Heh. Based off the comments under the video, a lot of people were complaining about how repetitive the song is but truth of the matter is, and I don’t know if this is intentional or not, it is often the people who aren’t all right that insist over and over and over again that they’re totally fine. So in a way the repetitive chorus reflects that.

I’m not all that familiar with Brown Eyed Soul, but the couple songs I have heard by them are really really nice. Naul released an album recently too and I’ve heard a couple songs on it which I thought were nice but it’s just not my usual style of music. Yekyung’s convinced that I don’t appreciate ballads because I’m still “young.” XD

That all being said! I’ve been listening to 정엽’s newest album for the past hour or so; his voice is so soothing, I could cry. Enjoy.

I really love listening to 유인나의 볼륨을 높여요, not only for the 사연s, but also for the music (go figure). The nice thing about the podcast version of the show is that you only hear a 10-20 second clip of the song being played – in my opinion, plenty of time to decide whether I like it or not. That’s how I found out about this song.

Okay, so I don’t know much about first-gen K-pop. I’ve heard of H.O.T, Seo Taiji and Boys, and (recently) 젝스키스 because of 응답하라 1997 (Hakchan is my favorite character, but that’s a whoooole other post). I knew of G.O.D, but only because of 최고의 사랑 and Yoon Kyesang. This is my first time actually listening to them and I’ve been looping this song nonstop for the past couple days.

Man, the lyrics are so, so relevant to anyone in or around their college years. I actually read a lot of recent fan comments talking about how they were in elementary school when the song first came out and they thought it was nice at the time, but now that they’re in college, it means so much more to them. So I felt I had to share.